Chapter 4 - Building a Fortress
The next forty-eight hours were a masterclass in chaos management.
I closed the Meridian acquisition from my desk while Lucas used my multi-million-dollar financial monitors to draw crude pictures of dinosaurs in MS Paint. Liam sat cross-legged on the floor beside my leather chair, building towering skyscrapers out of empty legal pad boxes and paperclips.
Claire proved to be an unexpected lifeline. She arrived the next morning with two carseats, a massive box of clothes from a high-end children’s boutique in Soho, diapers, wipes, and a portable crib.
“You didn’t have to do this, Claire,” I said, looking at the mountain of supplies piling up near the private elevator.
“Mr. Miller,” she said with a dry smile, “if these boys are yours, they have your stubborn chin and your exact same scowl when they’re concentrating. That means if I don’t help, I’ll probably be working for them in twenty years. Besides, someone has to make sure they don’t eat the sticky notes. The red ones look like candy.”
I actually laughed. A real, genuine laugh. I couldn't remember the last time I had done that.
That evening, as the Manhattan skyline lit up in shades of amber and violet, I realized I couldn't keep two four-year-old boys living in a corporate skyscraper indefinitely. Emerald Tower had state-of-the-art security, bulletproof glass, and an executive dining room, but it didn't have a bathtub. It didn't have a backyard. It didn't have a bed meant for sleeping rather than crashing during a late-night merger.
I called my lead real estate broker at nine o'clock at night.
“David. I need a residence.”
“Of course, Jason. Upper East Side penthouse? Tribeca loft?”
“No,” I said, watching Liam and Lucas curled up asleep on my leather couch under my cashmere overcoat. “I need a house. Somewhere with a yard. Trees. A fence. High privacy, close to a good private school, fully furnished, move-in ready by tomorrow morning.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “A... a house, Jason? With a yard? You hate grass.”
“My priorities have changed. Send me the top three options within the hour. Price is not an object.”
By the next afternoon, we were standing in the foyer of a sprawling, beautifully renovated brownstone in Greenwich Village with a private walled garden out back. It had hardwood floors, a massive kitchen with marble countertops, and two sun-drenched bedrooms upstairs currently painted in soft, neutral tones waiting to be transformed.
When I carried Liam and Lucas through the front door, they looked around with wide, disbelieving eyes.
“Is this a hotel?” Lucas asked, clutching his backpack.
“No, buddy,” I said, kneeling down and setting him gently on the floor. “This is our home.”
Liam walked over to the floor-to-ceiling bay window that looked out over the private garden, where a tall oak tree swayed gently in the afternoon breeze. He pressed his small hands against the glass.
“Can we keep our toys here?”
May you like
“All of them,” I promised. “And we can buy as many new ones as you want.”
He turned around, looked at me with those ice-blue eyes, and for the very first time, he smiled—a bright, unguarded grin that looked exactly like Emma’s smile when we were young, before the world made us hard.
